Who hires hunter and trappers? Sometimes, a golf course.
Here, in ranching country 50 miles northwest of Houston, wild hogs have found particular ease rooting in the gently sloping greens of Blaketree National Golf Club. “It looks like if you took a shovel and just dug down a foot and flipped the soil over,” said Scott Cory, manager of the course. “It tears the golf course up like you can’t imagine.”
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But a landowner’s menace can be a sportsman’s delight. Even to old hands, wild hogs have proved hard to kill and harder to catch. They recognize traps. They move at night. They run quickly over short distances. They evade hunters in the thick brush. When pursued, they lead dogs into the water to drown. Failing that, they back up against a rock or a tree to fight.
“It’s tough to sneak up on them because of their sense of smell,” said Richard Minnis, an assistant professor of wildlife disease ecology at Mississippi State University. “They are an extremely wary critter. They’re very smart.”
Including repairs and loss of business, Mr. Cory estimated the annual cost of the hogs at $9,000 for Blaketree National. He has found little success with hunting parties that “would grab their guns and beer and just go out screaming and yelling.”
Casting about for a more methodical approach, Mr. Cory was referred to Mr. Watson, 33, a bulldozer operator who culled hogs from nearby ranches in his spare time. Mr. Watson had been building traps with Mr. Kennedy, 25, a student of construction management who had married into his family. They charged landowners $200 for the traps, keeping the right to sell their catch at slaughter for 25 to 30 cents a pound.
Bacon a Hard Way: Hog-Tying 400 Pounds of Fury (The New York Times; June 21, 2008)
